


running the bases

by ficteer



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Demisexuality, M/M, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 20:59:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5020342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficteer/pseuds/ficteer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abe thinks about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	running the bases

**Author's Note:**

> so... this fic features fairly prominently a headcanon of mine that abe is demisexual. he doesn't use the label in-text, but it's implied that he would eventually stumble over the term while researching what he's experiencing and i'd suspect would indeed use the label. being demi myself, this is how i experience my sexuality, so i used my own personal experiences in abe's pov. 
> 
> that said, this isn't an Abe Is Demisexual fic. i've tagged it bc it's prominent enough to the fic that it felt appropriate, but the plot is more Abe Is An Idiot About Everything Including And Maybe Especially Himself And How Far Gone He Is For Mihashi.
> 
> enjoy!

  
The first time Abe thought about it, it had been completely by accident. Something that had happened because he’d been too tired after practice to deal with the mirror leaned up against his desk. A fluke, caused days ago when he’d stepped on a sock that had been on his floor and slipped, book in his hand flying straight into the old mirror hanging by his closet. The mirror had shattered, been cleaned up, and now a new one was ready to replace it. Tomorrow, when he would have the energy.

The thought was as accidental as the breaking of the mirror. It snuck into his mind when his defenses were low, after he’d lotioned his hand and methodically, clinically gotten himself off so sleep would come faster and he’d be more rested for practice in the morning. He’d reached over for a tissue, and the stretch over to his bedside table had the light from the street lamp illuminating his face just enough, the glitter from the mirror just enough, so that his eyes shifted from trash can to glass.

His face was flushed, cheekbones burnt red and lower lip just a little raw from where his teeth had sunken in to keep in the soft noises he’d make otherwise. There was a slight sheen of sweat still clinging to his skin, and a lingering release of tension he had never really noticed he’d carried in his face until he saw himself in the mirror, post orgasm, relaxed and perfectly content and just on this side of passing out for the night. No worry or anxiety or -

It was then that the thought snuck in. A tiny curiosity. A silent wonder. The first strike.

\----------

_What does Mihashi look like after…?_

\----------

Their senior year was bringing many differences to the team. More players, more prestige, more money. Their second year, they’d even gotten a field of their own. Hanai constantly rocketing balls over the ancient fence had set the stage, yes, but coming only one game away from Koshien the summer before had signed the check. It wasn’t long before Hanai wasn’t the only one getting that kind of power behind his hits, and they’d spent Christmas peering out to the construction site with glee.

Only a few things hadn’t changed. Hanai was captain, Abe and Sakaeguchi still his vice captains, Mihashi still the ace pitcher and clutch for the most intense games. Tajima had dodged an indecent exposure complaint from the two new managers only by Izumi tackling him into a set of bushes. Ai-chan was a constant fit and every new player learned the hard way just why Momoe’s word was law.

There was one thing, though, one thing that Abe wished  _would_  change. Even now, even still, Abe spent the last five minutes before taking to the field clutching Mihashi’s cold hands between his own and giving the blond affirmations that yes, they could do this, they’d already done this so many times before, this was just another chance to prove they’d do it again. Victory on the field had brought popularity in school, and more than once, Abe had fished his pitcher out of a crowd and spent the next few hours trying to wheedle the anxiety out of still-thin limbs.

Years of settling into his skin and Mihashi was jumpy at best, a nervous wreck at worst. Even after watching Mihashi befriend his friends from Mihoshi again, even after watching Mihashi bond forever with his friends at Nishiura, even though Abe had done enough research to know that this was probably never going to go all the way away, Abe wanted more for Mihashi. Wanted him to feel calm. Protected.  _Safe._

Abe wanted Mihashi to feel  _good._

\----------

“So you’ve been staring at Mihashi even more than usual lately.”

Abe looked up from his lunch, surprised to see Izumi wrangling his legs into place so he could sit backwards in the chair towards Abe. Izumi dropped his own lunch on Abe’s desk, grabbing a pair of chopsticks and digging around before taking a huge bite of rice.

“I mean, not that it’s really unusual for you to stare at him,” Izumi continued, mouth half-full. Abe felt his face pull into a look of disgust that was promptly ignored. “Like, you two have your own bromance page on Facebook and everything. It’s not exactly a secret that you’d stick it up his butt the second you got the okay.”

“ _What?!_ ” Abe snapped, blistering anger flashing from the heat he could feel all over his skin in sheer embarrassment and rage and - and Jesus Christ,  _no_. “Where the hell do you even get off - ”

“Yeah, you’re right, you’d definitely wait until at least the tenth date before making your moves. Though, to be honest, I’m not completely convinced you haven’t really already passed that point.” Izumi cut a stare up at Abe, who clenched his jaw shut firmly. “You do realize that practice doesn’t count as a date, even if you do hold hands and make goo goo eyes, right?”

“Mihashi and I - We’re not -  _dating._ ” Abe hissed out the last word like a burst of steam. “And of course I’m staring at him. It’s my  _job_  to - ”

Izumi rolled his eyes and groaned around another mouth full. “Oh my god, yes, we get it, it’s your job to watch over his health because he’s too much of an idiot to do it himself. But like, there’s a difference between what you used to do and what you’re doing now, and if you say otherwise you and I  _both_  know you’re bullshitting.”

Abe darted a glance around the room, suddenly panicked at the thought that someone was listening. Everyone else was doing the usual and ignoring him, though, having long figured out that while yes Abe was On The Baseball Team That Was Winning A Lot, he was Also An Asshole Who Didn’t Care About Anything Else. It was odd for that to be a relief, but he’d take it, especially considering the fact that everything else he felt at the moment was anything but.

“What exactly are you expecting me to say?” Abe asked, carefully, looking from his classmates to Izumi’s stuffed cheeks. “It seems pretty obvious to me that you’ve got your idea of the story already.”

“Am I wrong?” Izumi asked, staring at Abe over the rim of his tea can. Abe swallowed.

“I’m just… I’ve been thinking lately,” Abe started, soft and quiet and wondering how much to say to keep Izumi off his back and how much to keep for his own sanity and privacy. “He’s still so anxious all the time. It’s annoying.”

“Well, yeah, duh. I mean, he went through some heavy shit in middle school,” Izumi said, swirling the can so his tea sloshed around. “That’s not something you just get over.”

“I  _know_  that,” Abe snapped, because he  _did_ , he’d read enough articles about anxiety and social phobias and everything he thought Mihashi had and maybe even a few he was sure Mihashi didn’t, desperate and bedridden for an injury that had left him unable to do anything else to help his pitcher get better.

“… You know it’s not your job to fix him, right?” Izumi said, tone uncharacteristically careful. “It’s not like he’s broken or anything. He’s just. Different. Needs more time around people. Needs a little more support from others because he can’t always give it to himself like the rest of us do.”

“It’s not about -  _fixing_  him,” Abe bit back, more than a little annoyed at Izumi’s implication. “It’s - It’s  _complicated_ , all right?”

“It’s causing you to stare at Mihashi enough so even  _he_  notices,” Izumi said, and that brought Abe out of the cloud of  _Mihashi Mihashi Mihashi_  that was always swirling at least a little bit in his brain back down to earth.

“He said something to you?” he asked, very still.

Izumi shrugged one shoulder. “Not in so many words. But I know you two idiots well enough to piece together what’s going on.”

“What did he say?”

“He just mentioned in passing that he was worried about you since you were staring at him the other day. For Mihashi to notice, you’d have to be about dissecting him with your eyeballs, and I know you well enough to know what that means.”

Abe bit back something along the lines of ‘ _you don’t know shit’_  but the truth was, and he and Izumi knew it both, that somewhere along the two and a half years they’d known each other, that had grown to be the case. Instead, he took Izumi’s words and chewed on them. Mihashi was worried about  _him_.

“I’ll talk to him,” Abe said, even though even the thought of talking about this kind of thing with Mihashi gave him worms in his gut. Izumi’s unimpressed eyebrow raise did all the rest of the talking between them.

\----------

As it turned out, Abe in fact did not talk to Mihashi.

Instead, he went home after practice. He greeted his mother and ate his dinner, tousled with his brother for space in the bathroom for brushing his teeth, then walked into his bedroom. He shut the door behind him, and leaned against it, staring blankly at the mirror still sitting next to his desk. He swallowed once, thickly, brain nothing beyond a fuzzy haze, nothing just his body moving without him being completely sure what it was doing.

He stepped away from his door, turned around, and clicked the lock into place.

He stripped off his shorts first, then his boxers. He kept his socks on since his feet tended to get cold in the night, and his shirt, because… because his brain wasn’t telling him to take it off yet. It was telling him to lie down on his bed, on his back, and so he did.

Abe took a moment to stare at his ceiling, his sheets catching on his skin as he wiggled a bit to get comfortable. It was just a little cool in his room still, spring’s chill still clinging to the air. He closed his eyes. And then, he did something he’d never done before. Never  _wanted_  to do before. Something he wanted to do now.

Fingertips whispering down his skin, barely a touch over his hips, Abe parted his lips on a sigh and he thought about Mihashi.

Almost immediately, his heart spiked into a faster movement when the blond’s face crossed his mind. But it wasn’t enough. His brow furrowed, and he dug just a little deeper. Thought about Mihashi during a game, on the mound, hazel eyes intense and one hundred percent on Abe. Nails dug suddenly into his thighs, and Abe realized with a jolt that they were his own.

“Oh, shit,” he whispered helplessly into the darkness of his bedroom, blood heating faster than it had ever done before, his entire body boiling beneath his skin. He reached over to his bedside table and knocked over his lotion bottle with his shaking hands. His heart pounding, he quickly slicked up his palm and then rolled back onto his back. Mihashi in the showers after a good game, still in the zone despite the fact that they were through, eyes intense and body caressed by hot water. Abe quivered.

Gripping his cock harder than he ever had before, Abe bit around a choked off sound. His skin felt too small for everything inside of him, too tight for the inferno raging in his gut, fingers clenching in his sheets as his body rolled up helplessly into his fist. When he came, he had to turn his head into his pillow to smother the inhuman sound he made, teeth alone not enough to muffle the noise. His eyes opened, and with his head turned, he could see himself in the mirror.

He looked  _wrecked_. His right hand was still holding his shivering cock, gripping it as his lungs heaved with each breath. Sometime during the most intense few minutes of his life, he’d gotten his shirt rucked up to his armpits and (were those  _scratches?!_ ) his whole body was flushed and glistening, and -  _Jesus_  - he’d come all the way up to his sternum, slicked up his gut and gotten himself filthy enough to warrant a second shower. His legs were trembling, and his face - god, his face was blissed out, slack and open like he hadn’t seen in - in  _ever_.

He -

He wanted to know -

\----------

That was the second time.

\----------

The next morning, Abe realized that he couldn’t meet Mihashi’s eyes.

It was… there were two parts to it, really. One being that for some reason he couldn’t keep his eyes off Mihashi’s shoulders, or his hands, or his neck, or the way he licked the sweat off his upper lip ( _how_  had Abe not noticed that before?  _why was he noticing it now?_ ), or the way his fingers curved around a baseball so the pads of his fingers could trace the seams, or how the white of his pants just had this way of curving just  _so_  around his hips to flaunt the curve of the hipbones Abe realized he knew the exact shape of.

The second came after Mihashi stood across from him in the bull pen and Abe  _remembered_. A gaze like a caress of fire on his skin, like Mihashi’s eyes were burning images of a perfect pitch on Abe’s flesh. He’d managed a few seconds of normalcy before he had to drop his gaze to Mihashi’s mouth, only to realize that wasn’t much safer.

He caught Izumi giving him a strange look when they took a water break, but when he glanced to Mihashi, he saw him goofing off with Tajima, not looking any more troubled than he had any business to. He looked back down to the cup of water clutched in his hand, staring at the scowling reflection in the water’s tension.

Classes passed normally, and Abe found it only a little difficult to compartmentalize whatever storm was brewing inside of him in favor of focusing on his studies. He was good, and he didn’t doubt he’d get a baseball scholarship a lot of places, but Mihashi - Mihashi was  _good_ , Mihashi’s got his options wide open, and Abe - Abe came to terms with the fact that he was going to do what it took to make sure he had the widest choice of schools, be it for academics or for sports. Just in case.

Afternoon practice wasn’t more of the same, but only because it was  _worse_. He kept getting distracted by  _thighs legs hips hands fingers lips,_ all  _there_  and. And  _Mihashi._  It was unlike anything Abe had ever experienced before, just a constant awareness of Mihashi - though he realized that it was indeed something he’d experienced before, sort of. It was almost like what he experienced in every game, taking stock of Mihashi after every pitch, memorizing every piece of him, like a mental snapshot in case - in case something happened. An encyclopedic knowledge of his pitcher. The catcher’s job.

(But had Haruna ever licked the sweat off his upper lip? Did he run his fingertips over the seams of a baseball whenever his mind wandered? Had there ever been another pitcher Abe had learned so well?)

“Abe-kun.”

Mihashi’s voice startled Abe out of his thoughts as surely as if he’d pinched him. Abe glanced at Mihashi’s face, then exhaled slightly when he saw that Mihashi’s eyes were cast downwards, only for his gut to twist when he realized his sigh was from relief. He couldn’t let himself think like that, not for how hard he’d worked to get Mihashi to look at him in the first place.

“Mihashi?” he prompted after a few moments of silence. He glanced down and saw Mihashi worrying a baseball in his hands, then swallowed and looked back up. The last thing he needed right now was to get distracted.

“Are… Are you…” Mihashi started, worrying his lower lip between his teeth (shit) and then licking away the indentations left behind (shit) as he opened his mouth ( _shit_ ) and tried to get the words out. “Are we okay?”

The warble in Mihashi’s voice cleared every bit of haze from Abe’s mind. “What?” he asked, bringing his eyes from Mihashi’s mouth and going utterly still when he saw that Mihashi’s eyes were as intense as they were on the mound, but - but wet, tears beginning to cling to his lashes that were golden in the dying sunlight.

“You - Did I - I’m - ” Mihashi started three sentences at once, then physically bit back a fourth. “You were - acting strange, and then today - today you won’t - you can’t even  _look_  at me.”

Abe felt himself go cold. “Mihashi - ”

“I’m sorry, I’m - I did, I did something, and now you’re angry, and I don’t know what I did but - ” Mihashi’s shoulders hunched up to his ears in perfect concert to how Abe’s stomach dropped to his feet. “P-Please tell me what I did, so I don’t do it again! I don’t - I don’t want you mad at me, not you, I can’t - You can’t be mad at me. I need you, Abe-kun, so, so you  _can’t_.”

Abe reached over and gripped Mihashi’s biceps, then pulled him closer until Mihashi’s face as in the corner of his neck and shoulder. He brought his hands up to card through Mihashi’s sweaty hair, holding him closer than whatever awkward words Abe managed out could get them. “You - You didn’t do anything,” Abe said, closing his eyes when he felt Mihashi’s fingers curl into his practice jersey. “I promise. You didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m not mad.”

“Promise?” Mihashi hiccuped, straightening his spine until his forehead was pressed against Abe’s. “You promise… you’d tell me, right? If - If I - ”

“I promise,” Abe swore, aching from the inside out as he met Mihashi’s eyes fiercely. Mihashi nodded, then leaned back close and nuzzled his face into Abe’s shoulder, shuddering out the last of his tears. Abe sighed out, feeling cored from Mihashi’s sadness. “I promise.”

\----------

When Abe had gotten hurt and found himself unable to do anything but sit for hours at a time, he’d looked up Mihashi’s quirks, one by one: labeling them, studying them, learning how to be the best catcher for his pitcher that he could. The best friend he could. He’d learned about anxiety, how it wasn’t something that would probably ever go away, how it was as part of Mihashi as the silly slant to his smile.

Now, he was sitting in front of his computer again, pulling up Google and staring at the search bar, as lost to begin with as he had been then. He had no words to type in, no real notion for what he was even trying to understand. Just a vague sense that he was lost and needed to find out how to get out of it.

After a few minutes, he huffed out and decided that clearly he didn’t even have the slightest clue about where to begin. He pulled out a notebook, then grabbed a pen, nervously glancing at his door to double-triple check that it was shut. With an exhale, he turned back to the notebook, then started the list. He needed symptoms before he could find the issue.

Problem one was easy. He couldn’t look at Mihashi the same way he had before. Not since that one night, not since he’d changed everything, not since he’d come his brains out thinking about Mihashi. He felt his cheeks burn red-hot, but he wrote it down anyway, ‘ _thought about Mihashi while masturbating_ ’. And it - it wasn’t just that it was Mihashi. He’d never thought about anyone before, Abe thought, tapping his pen against his desk. He’d never gotten off because it felt good - not that it didn’t feel good to get off, because an orgasm was an orgasm, but - it had always had a purpose, masturbating. Get to sleep faster. Relieve the edge of a headache. Nothing that ever had anything to do with putting a fire out for a little while. Nothing that had melted his brain like thinking about Mihashi had.

And that - that was what was happening now. A fiery maelstrom in his skin every time he looked at Mihashi and  _noticed_  him. He was - he was thinking about those fingers, so methodical on a baseball, on  _him_. Wondered what it would be like for  _his_  tongue to trace Mihashi’s lip. Wondered if the pale skin of his stomach had a different texture than the tanned expanse of his arms. He couldn’t even look at him on the mound, not without picturing those intense eyes - what, he didn’t know, maybe just… focused on him? Mihashi watching him like Mihashi watched baseball, thinking about him like he thought about baseball, being - being as  _important_  to him as baseball was -  _shit._

‘ _Feel like touching Mihashi all the time_ ’ Abe wrote next. Then, ‘ _sexually_ ’. Because he was no stranger to touching Mihashi. He could probably pick Mihashi’s hand out of a blindfolded lineup. Knew the exact weight of Mihashi’s fingers between his own. It was just the fire that was new, that small jolt he got now, the way it made Abe’s throat clench and mouth go dry.

But that wasn’t all of the problem either, Abe thought. Izumi had come to him before this whole sexual dimension had even been part of the problem. He’d been looking at Mihashi more, with more intensity. He remembered what he’d told Izumi then, that it was complicated, and - it was, it was so many things knotted together in his mind. It was - it was needing to know how Mihashi was feeling, needing to see if he needed to step in and rest a hand on Mihashi’s shoulder to ease tension there, needing -

…Needing to  _be_  the one to put his hand on Mihashi’s shoulder.

“…Huh,” Abe mumbled out loud, writing down ‘ _want to be the one comforting Mihashi_ ’ next. He wanted to be the one Mihashi turned to, wanted to be the one who could make Mihashi feel safe enough to be calm and relaxed. And then, his pen froze, because he suddenly remembered the single moment half-forgotten because of a sleepy stupor. A single tendril of thought that had picked its way into his brain. One thought that had changed  _everything._

With trembling fingers, Abe wrote it down.

‘ _I want to see what Mihashi looks like when he comes.’_

\----------

Strike three.

\----------

The bus to training camp was not too different than it was their first year. Tajima was still rowdy as hell, Shinooka was a little bit more informed about how the boys were going to be but still mostly focusing on organizing the manager’s duties for the week, and he - he was sitting next to Mihashi. Mihashi, who was happily texting Kanou, which was worlds apart from the physically sickened Mihashi Abe’d been forced to deal with, but still a heavy constant against Abe’s shoulder.

“He’s not going to start until the fourth inning,” Mihashi said with a pout down at his phone. “They’ve been trying to turn him into a closing pitcher.”

“There are a few games where you do that,” Abe reminded, unable to hide his grin when Mihashi huffed.

“Not willingly,” he mumbled. Unable to help himself, Abe ruffled Mihashi’s hair. He let his fingers linger a bit longer, curled a few of the strands around his finger, and enjoyed the way they looked like sunlight against his skin. Every time, it was softer than he expected, though the smell of his shampoo was familiar and had Abe’s stomach singing with delight.

“Abe-kun?” Mihashi asked, blinking up into his face with hazel eyes that were everything he wanted. Abe swallowed thickly and wondered when he’d fallen in love with Mihashi Ren.

It was the same as last year and the year before when they got to the building. The team pitched together and cleaned everything up, then split up as the pitchers and catchers went to the field and the rest of the team went to pick the vegetables for their dinner. It left Abe feeling a strange sense of nostalgia, stepping onto the dirt mound with two other batteries, watching as they tried to fit themselves together as he and Mihashi had done two long years ago.

Practice, then dinner, then getting out the futons and falling into them. It was a cycle Abe knew well, made better because he’d purposefully placed his futon next to Mihashi’s and put his own futon against the wall. Mihashi always derived comfort from his team, and Abe wanted him to have that touch, even while they were asleep.

He fell asleep quickly and easily, though he didn’t stay that way. His eyes blinked open in the dark, body heavy with sleep. The moonlight cascaded into the room, proving the late hour, leaving Abe to stare blearily at the ceiling before closing his eyes to fall back asleep. But then, just as he closed his eyes, he heard a soft sound. He kept his eyes closed so he could focus on what it was, in case it was some kind of animal that had snuck into the room because  _hell no_. His mind, still slow from sleep, took a few seconds before his ears registered the sound as puffy breaths from Mihashi’s futon.

Abe turned his head slightly, so very slowly, terrified that Mihashi would discover that he was awake. He cracked his eyes open, enough to see but not enough to be seen, and in an instant his entire body stiffened and a groan nearly clawed its way out of his chest.

Mihashi’s back was to him, the blond lying on his side and his shoulder moving in an almost imperceptible manner. The sounds were breaths, tiny, bitten-off gasps, and a slight movement whenever Mihashi’s body jerked unconsciously, uncontrollably into what his hand was doing. Abe was on  _fire_. His cock had never gotten so hard so fast in his life, his fingers clenching to the point of pain in his futon. Mihashi was - Mihashi was masturbating, right next to him, gods let him breathe but Mihashi was close enough for Abe to feel his body heat and his hand was - oh shit, his hand was probably wet with precum and fingers tight and hot around his -

Abe bit down hard on his lower lip. He was going to  _die_. He shut his eyes and tried desperately to ignore Mihashi’s soft grunts, because - because Mihashi thought he was alone, didn’t know Abe was listening, it wasn’t how Abe wanted to - How Mihashi deserved to - but he couldn’t, his ears wouldn’t stop picking up on how Mihashi’s breath was getting irregular, how he could hear the wet noises as Mihashi’s hand moved faster because  _god help him Mihashi was fucking his hand_   _right fucking there_ , and - Abe’s eyes opened, wide and focused intently on the desperate movements of Mihashi’s shoulder and if he just rolled over, Abe could  _see,_ he’d see his face, see his chest moving to get enough air, see the flush covering his skin and the sweat making him glow, see - oh fucking - see his hand stripping his wet cock and maybe even - maybe Mihashi would even  _come_  on him -

And then he heard it, saw the sudden tension in Mihashi’s spine, the way his shoulder stripped fast enough to hurt before stiffening completely, heard Mihashi’s breath catch deep in his throat.  _Turn over turn over turn over turn over_  Abe thought, half terrified he would and half terrified he wouldn’t.

“ _Taka_.”

Abe froze, absolutely still, not able to move even if the building itself caught on fire. The heat he felt through his veins in the next heartbeat could have probably made that happen, because - because Mihashi - he’d -  _he’d_  -

Mihashi slowly sat up, and Abe closed his eyes and tried to keep his breathing as smooth as it definitely wasn’t. He heard Mihashi shuffle out of his futon, and unable to resist, he cracked his eyes open only to feel a punch to the gut when he saw Mihashi’s hand cupped like he was holding a mess. Abe shivered from head to toe, and the sudden mental image of  _what if he’d reached over when Mihashi had sat up and taken that hand and brought those fingers to his mouth_  had him rolling over onto his other side and shoving his knuckles into his mouth to muffle the noise that came out. That - that wasn’t  _anything_  Abe Takaya ever thought about, that was - that was  _visceral_ , and -  _Jesus._

It was a few minutes before Mihashi came back, crawling into his futon. Abe kept absolutely, deathly still, wondering how the universe was going to expect him to sleep near Mihashi ever again if things like Mihashi coming with Abe’s name - his  _first_ name - on his lips was happening.

But then, he felt a soft pressure between his shoulder blades and a gentle tickle of hair at the base of his neck. Mihashi’s forehead, pressed warm to him, and a nose nuzzling softly at his shirt. If he’d been asleep, it would have been a touch too light to wake him, but here, hyper-conscious of Mihashi and skin already alight, it was the most intimate thing Abe had ever experienced. Mihashi curled warm fingers gently in his shirt, and then there was a content sigh that had Abe’s eyes feeling oddly moist.

\----------

Despite the fact that it felt like everything had changed, there was a constance to the next few weeks as Abe fell into the methodical schedule of baseball-class-baseball-sleep that was as familiar to him as breathing. But even with the repetition, there was a fullness to his days that he couldn’t quite put a finger on. Something about arriving to the field and seeing Mihashi’s smile, as broad and bright as their promise of  _together we’ll be the best battery in Japan_  and a memory of  _no matter what I’ll always be by your side_  had Abe feeling so full; but it wasn’t the same too-big-for-his-skin feel that had plagued him before, the feel that he was going to burst if he didn’t claw his way out somehow. It was… it was a contentment, broad and rich and so very close to everything he wanted.

“Nice to see you’re back to yourself,” Izumi said one morning, swinging his bat around to warm up.

“Not really,” Abe responded, taking a swing of his own. “I’m better.”

“Hohhh?” Izumi cooed, taking one more swing before leering at Abe. “Something good happen?” Abe didn’t even try to smother his grin. “Oh, thank god, he got laid. Nice to see Mihashi finally got the baseball bat from outta your ass.”

And then Abe’s grin died, irritation falling into perfect concert with Izumi’s mocking laughter. “We - we haven’t - we’re  _not_ \- There’s more to it than that.”

Izumi’s shitty mocking expression dialed back into something a bit fonder. “Geez, you’re really gone for him, aren’t you?” Abe felt his cheeks burn, and Izumi clicked his tongue against his teeth once before going back to swinging his bat. “Ugh, you two are going to be  _that_  couple. Because, like, you  _do_  know that Mihashi is as gone for you as you are for him, right? Please tell me you’re not this stupid.”

Abe’s stomach twisted in a quiet delight. “Yeah, I know.”

After practice, freshly showered and Izumi’s small smile giving him the last bit of hope that he needed, Abe reached out and let his fingers brush against Mihashi’s wrist. The bare contact was all that was needed to have Mihashi stopping in place, feet secure and attention completely on Abe. He didn’t even try to smother how that lit up something inside of him.

“Abe-kun?” Mihashi asked, eyes wide and bright and every piece of Abe’s future.

“Can I talk to you for a second? Um… alone?” Abe asked in return, quietly, but somehow some of the other players overheard and loud cat calls started pouring in. Abe scowled ferociously, and while it scared a few of the first years, the second years were mostly unaffected and the third years - Tajima, Izumi, and  _Nishihiro?!_ \- just laughed. Thankfully, they did vacate, leaving Abe alone to clear his throat and look back to where Mihashi’s cheeks were perfect and pink with embarrassment.

“What is it?” Mihashi asked, then, “Abe-kun?”

 _Taka. Taka. Taka._  “You should… You still - We still. Use. Last names,” Abe managed to get out. Christ. “And, and I don’t - ”  _Gods above could he just spit it out -_ “I want you to use my first name. Please.”

Mihashi bloomed from pink to red, opening his mouth to say something, but Abe couldn’t let him say his name, couldn’t settle for just a piece of what he wanted, not anymore -

“And - !” he continued, gripping Mihashi’s hand tightly as he felt his face burn like a small sun. “And I want - I mean, would you - I want to be yours. And I want you to - to be mine. I want to be by your side forever, not just in baseball, but.”

It was the shittiest rendition he’d given, even after having practiced in front of his mirror (that he’d  _finally_  put on his wall) for about a week. But Mihashi’s fingers tightened around his own, and there was a smile on Mihashi’s face. A new smile, one Abe had never seen before, one that wasn’t as bright and brilliant as the flash of teeth he’d worked so hard so see so many times, but one that was  _his_ , one that had  _I love Abe Takaya_  written into every crease.

“You already were,” Mihashi responded softly, swooning in softly and tilting his head back ever so much. “Takaya.”

Abe’s free hand reached up to card through Mihashi’s hair, still a little damp from his shower but still so soft, so perfect between the v’s of his fingers. “Ren,” Abe gasped, lips parting as he could feel Mihashi’s breath on his face, and that,  _that_  was the moment it happened - Mihashi’s face slackened, every line of anxiety disappeared, every trace of anything other than  _calm_  and  _peace_  and  _safe_. “ _Ren._ ”

Mihashi leaned up onto his tip toes, hand resting gently on Abe’s waist as he brushed his lips against Abe’s, gentle and chaste and still managing to set Abe ablaze. His skin vibrated with the need to be closer, to just climb into Mihashi’s skin and never come back out. He let the soft plushness of Mihashi’s lips press against his own, once, then twice, each time leaving him breathless and dizzy and absolutely delighted. He dipped down just a bit, kissing Mihashi’s lower lip, then the dip of his upper lip, then each corner, memorizing each brush of their skin as thoroughly as he’d memorized everything else about Mihashi.

Hours, days, years passed before Mihashi fell back down to the flats of his feet, Abe chasing his lips for one last kiss before he straightened back. Mihashi was flushed and pleased, eyes as bright as if stars had been born behind them. A single finger slipped beneath Abe’s shirt, caressing the line of his hipbone where it traced down to his waistband, and Mihashi’s soft laugh was smothered when Abe pressed one more kiss, then one more.

“You’re going to kill me,” Abe groaned, delighting in everything new about being close,  _wanting_  to be close, wanting and  _needing_  in strange ways that had him delirious with the novelty of it. He’d thought it was bad before, but now, knowing that someday it could - probably  _would_  - happen, all of those… those  _things_ … “You’re going to  _kill_ me, Ren.”

“No, I won’t,” Mihashi responded, using his nose to brush a tender line along Abe’s jaw. “No one else calms me down like you do, Takaya. I won’t let you go.” Abe shivered, suddenly wondering if - if every time he’d been watching Mihashi to see if he needed to be calmed, if - if Mihashi was looking back at him, wanting, waiting. The thought had him laughing into Mihashi’s temple, a feeling like victory thrilling through every piece of him.

And that -  _that_ felt like a home run.


End file.
